


Traught

by Cake and Pi (Tarrin)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4959262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarrin/pseuds/Cake%20and%20Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’d seen the way he way he looked at her, when he thought she wouldn’t notice. She had. She was sick of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traught

The can burst when she pulled at the tab. Zatanna flinched as it spilled over her hand and down her arm. "Little piece of!" She began, heat filling her chest. She felt as if she might pop from it, just like the soda can had just done. But she had no tab to pull, she didn't have the excuse of being an overheated metal can if she let everything out, she -

She felt wetness run down her cheeks, and brusquely rubbed at her eyes. It made it worse. Her vision blurred, and between the heat pressing on her from within and without she hated everything.

Hated this beach. Hated the league. Hated that helmet and everything it took from her.

Hated that she was crying over a soda can.

She threw it at a nearby rock - it missed entirely. She snorted as more tears rolled down her face. Figured.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, beneath the umbrella she'd placed as a barrier against sunburn, head resting against her knees and nose clogging with more and more snot. But it must have been too long, cause she felt him watching again.

He watched her a lot recently.

She hated that too.

She'd seen the way he way he looked at her, when he thought she wouldn't notice. She had. Zatanna wasn’t entirely sure what was behind the look - pity, perhaps? - but she had been sick of it the first time. She was sick of it now.

"If you’re going to stare, either hide better or do it from the open." She snarled.

She sniffed loudly -  _way unattractive, Zee_ , a distant part of her noted, and she grimaced - and turned to glare at the shadows Robin hid in.

It had been a game at first, for him to hide and for her to try to find him without looking. A natural extension of their training, one that helped them both improve. She was not interested in playing that game anymore though.

Now, the boy wonder appeared to materialize from thin air from elsewhere, though she knew she'd been right about where he'd been hiding from his slightly too stiff, not-quite-chalant gait. He gave her a quizzical look and she turned away.

She stayed silent, even as her soda-sticky hands bunched into fists, as he sat down beside her. "You okay, Zee?" He asked after a moment.

Her breath hitched - for a breathless moment, she was calm. As if she were the eye of a hurricane. Fingernails bit into skin as she tried to hold onto that feeling. But it passed, and she wasn't the eye of the hurricane anymore, had only been in its path but too slow to make it inside to shelter.

"Okay? Of course I'm okay! I'm as  _traught_ as I could be!" Zatanna slammed her fists into the sand. "My dad's gone and there's a mole on the team and Black Canary keeps trying to talk to me and I can't even have drink a soda on the beach without crying and  _would you stop looking at me like that?!_ "

Robin didn't flinch. As if he would, with Batman as his mentor and Gotham as his home. His expression also didn't change and she turned away before it got under her skin anymore. She heard him shift on the sand -  _sand and spandex probably don’t mix well_ , said that part of her that refused to join in on all of this. And wasn't that a sign of how well she was functioning, that she could be so thoroughly,  _ridiculously_ , enraged and still remark on things like that?

"I know."

Zatanna blinked, then whipped her head back around to stare at him. He wasn't looking at her anymore, but at the ocean. "What the fuck are you even talking about, Robin?"

He glanced at her - she could never describe just  _how_ she knew when he did, what with that mask he wore in costume, or the dark sunglasses he wore now, but she knew. He drew a deep breath, as if gathering up something, and blew it out slowly.

"I lost my parents too. A few years ago. Not the same way, but." He shrugged in lieu of eloquence. "So I know. Kind of. What you're going through."

Zatanna knew she was staring, and couldn't work up the energy to care. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it when nothing came out. What  _could_ she say? She doubted Robin had lost his parents in the same way she had lost her dad. After a long, long moment, she finally asked, "And now you're going to tell me it'll get better, huh? Is that it?"

"Would it help, if I told you that?" His voice was soft, almost lost against the incoming tide. She shook her head. "Then I'll tell you the truth. It can seem better, but it's always hard. You get used to it, you find ways to deal and cope but it doesn't get easier. And it can be  _worse_ , some days. When you're laughing and having fun and then you just -" He paused, and his hands formed fists like hers.

Zatanna gulped and looked away. She scrubbed her face with the back of a hand - her tears had subsided with her outburst at Robin. She felt empty now, drained, even though she had cried harder and longer the night before.

A rustling sound drew her attention back to Robin, and her jaw dropped a little. His sunglasses lay on the sand -  _Batman is going to have an absolute_ fit  _when he finds out_  - and her breath hitched again, but there was no hurricane this time, only eyes that she'd never suspected were such a dazzling shade of blue.

"And sorry for however I was looking at you."

His expression was still the same, and yet it looked so different with his eyes. Definitely not pity. She shook her head and leaned over, dropping her head on his shoulder. He tensed at first, then sputtered as she draped a mass of her hair over him to hide his eyes. She felt oddly possessive of Robin, of his face and this bit of him he was sharing. "Zee, what?"

"Thanks." She's glad he doesn't ask what for; she wasn't entirely sure herself. But she thought, maybe, she didn't hate the way he looked at her after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic prompt from Doctorchalant: chalant and "I've seen the way you look at me when you think I don't notice."
> 
> I don't think what I wrote here about mourning and moving on is universally true. Dick's pretty young, and it's easy to see your experiences as the only true ones when you're younger. I do think that how easily someone moves past grief, and how they handle it, is a very personal thing, and is different for each person.


End file.
